


Belle was a Red Lion

by orphan_account



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-04
Updated: 2012-04-04
Packaged: 2017-11-03 01:46:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/375732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle was a lion, showing fangs. A lion who had seen war. Who had returned from battle bloody and victorious. Her prey was gone, devoured, hidden away within the earth—the only flag of her victory was the sweet blood dried into armor over her cheekbones.</p>
<p>Mr. Gold wondered why he had never seen her in this light before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Belle was a Red Lion

Belle was a lion, showing fangs. A lion who had seen war. Who had returned from battle bloody and victorious. Her prey was gone, devoured, hidden away within the earth—the only flag of her victory was the sweet blood dried into armor over her cheekbones.

Mr. Gold wondered why he had never seen her in this light before. Not when she had sold her life for her people, not when she had infiltrated the most secret chambers of the heart of the Dark One himself, and not when she had the nerve—the audacity—the _courage_ , to call him a coward to his face.

A kitten, he might have said at times; when she had fallen asleep with her cheek on the windowsill, or when she giggled over some quip that might have frightened a lesser man, or how she would run through the house barefoot to describe to him the contents of some old book she’d dug up. A cat at others, too wry and sharp for her own good.

But a lion?

Rumpelstiltskin would have laughed at the thought.

Mr. Gold found it hard to laugh now, though, the way his throat—and brain—had locked up. He couldn’t do much of anything, really, besides stare. Stare at the way the lion’s lip curled, a tongue darting out to catch blood from off her canines. Stare at the blood matted through her mane, leaving trails of it on her neck. Stare at her dress, her red, red dress, that he could have sworn was supposed to be blue. He had never seen a hospital gown quite so red, quite so bright, shinning and glinting wetly in the tree-filtered sun.

Strangely, he thought, it was more fitting than any ball gown or servant’s dress she had ever worn. He didn’t want it to be, of course. He’d rather like it if he could scoop her up right then and there and carry her home and put her in ducky pajamas and feed her hot chocolate and epic novels until the flush returned to her cheeks and the horror leaked out of her eyes. She wasn’t coming home, though. He knew that. Not at the rate this encounter was going.

Miss Swan wasn’t doing the greatest job of coaxing the knife out of the girl’s grasp, although he admitted it was hard to do from that distance, and from such a wild beast (secretly, he admonished Belle; she wasn’t supposed to clutch at it with both hands, she was slicing herself all up, although she’d already lost so much blood it didn’t really matter). Emma was knelt on the ground, a few yards away—closer than she had been let previously—arms spread and hands wide and shaking, pleading, begging, soothing, doing anything she could to get a little closer. Just a little closer.

She wouldn’t though. Belle would run. She always did. And she would continue to run until the last drip of crimson had fled her body. And then she would die, just as she had all those years ago (Gold had come to terms with it in that time, learned to swallow up the pain and lock his imagination tightly away. He didn’t need imagination now, though, as he watched the scene from behind the tree cover).

“Please, sweetheart,” Emma tried, her voice wavering through every syllable, “You’re going to die. Let me help you.”

Lions were supposed to be golden, he thought. Like Emma. Belle was red. A crimson lion.

“You don’t have to give me the knife,” she cajoled, seeing the way she kept it pressed firmly over her heart, “I don’t even have to touch it—just let me get you some help. You’re hurt,” she emphasized, and Gold snorted, as if Belle didn’t know about the bullet lodged in the linings of her organs, about the gentle pump of blood that flowed every time she gave a pant.

Belle was a live wire. Her muscles coiled to spring, each one shaking and jumping with adrenaline, her eyes—still as blue, and just as bright—alive with fear and victory and death. But for just a moment, she fell lax (a bit of the tranquilizer shining through, Gold thought), arms dropping as she curled over herself on the ground, and Emma thought that maybe there was a chance she could get to her. So, careful, quiet, she managed to crawl over, knees soaked through with the dampness of the earth.

It wouldn’t work, Gold could have told her, she’ll just get herself hurt, too. But the young woman was brave and kindhearted, and even raw fear could not steer her away from a wounded girl in need. She’s not just a girl, though, he also would have said, she’s a lion. A wounded, cornered, lion. And no matter how dry her veins were, she still had teeth and claws.

Or in this specific case, a fist and a knife.

The knife came first, a little slash and a jab, coupled with a strangled roar. Bloody fingers of an outstretched hand pulled back to stem the flow coming out from her shoulder, but still, no one could say Emma was not persistent. She reached out again, with her other hand, moving to pull free the fingers out of Belle’s mouth, where she was chomping so hard it wouldn’t be surprising if the bones just cracked.

“Don’t do that hun, shh, it’s okay,” Emma soothed, trying her damndest to smile against the force of her shaking jaw, sliding her fingers from Belle’s wrist to clasp her hand, running a thumb over her knuckles, “See? Everything’s fine, there’s nothing to worry about now. You’re safe.”

It was a lie, Belle knew. She wasn’t safe, not here, not ever. Her breath was hitching, a wheeze in its sound from the effort, and her eyes watered pitifully as she glared down at their linked hands. She didn’t appreciate being lied to. The coils in her legs released, slamming herself against the woman and propelling them into a tree. Emma’s head cracked against it. One second, the next, the one after, she lay still with her head drooped against her chest.

Belle let out a small sob. She hadn’t wanted to hurt the daughter of Snow. But she had to keep moving. So she dragged herself up, clamped an arm around the hole in her stomach, and started walking. A lion dragging herself to death with her tail between her legs.

Gold took his time in following. She wouldn’t get far, he knew. So he made his way to Emma first, checking her pupils and her breathing and running a thumb over the obvious crack in her broken nose. She was golden, he thought, a golden lion, but still red had left its mark. In her hair, running down from the back of her head, and down the front of her shirt.

He folded her jacket and fasted it tightly to her shoulder with his belt (he’d seen too much blood that day, he thought), and draped his own jacket over her—much larger and more protective against the chill of death in the forest air. He snuck his phone and gun under her hand, and left her propped up against a tree.

No wolves to bother the sleeping lion in this forest, he thought as he left, except for one, which may be of help anyway.

He was right when he knew he would find Belle. He knew of the inconsequential places the mind takes you when it’s frenzied, knew of the twists and turns in the path that did not exist without panic. He knew her by the sound of frustrated sobbing as she dug at the ground, clawing and scraping until her fingers were raw. He didn’t know why she dug. She didn’t know either, only that she could stop once he came into view.

He didn’t approach her, merely found a little groove against a tree and settled himself there, watching her. She stared back for a minute, and he could see all her life in her eyes. White walls. Red floors. Clerics up in a tower.

She scooted the churned dirt back over the hole, patting it down with shaking hands as if in an apology for messing it up in the first place. And then, hurriedly, she dragged herself closer to him (one of her legs wasn’t moving, he noticed) and fell against his lap. Her breath curled like lazy smoke out of her split lips, a small cough adding to their freckles.

It wasn’t real, Gold thought. None of it was. A lion in his lap, a dragon dead over her hoard. Belle had perished long ago, in another lifetime.

But as she looked up at him with half-lidded eyes and tried to smile, pulling the fabric of his shirt into her fist, and asked, “Are you still mad at me, Rum?” it was very real. Real enough to make him wonder if it wasn’t his cup that was chipped, if the missing shard had been clapped right out of his heart. At this point, it sure felt like glass.

“I never was, love.”

The teeth behind her grin should have been white and flat, not the pointed fangs of a hunter.

She pushed herself up, arms giving out multiple times beneath her, and propped her head onto his shoulder, sighing against his neck. He couldn’t run his fingers through her hair, so he pulled one arm taut around her waist and used his other fingers to stroke along her jaw.

“I killed the Queen,” she began conversationally.

He nodded, seeing stained floors and a marred face and too yellow crime tape behind his eyelids, “So I’d heard. It’s caused quite the buzz.”

She frowned a bit, lips twisting in displeasure, and she muttered, “Yes, but I think we’ll have to count it as a tie,” she looked off to the orange sky through the treetops, and for a moment Gold tried pretend they had taken a trip through the woods to watch the sunset. But her breath was too labored and her blood too hot against his stomach.

“And why is that, dearie?”

“She killed me, too.”

And it was true. Belle never lied. But for the moment he could pretend.

 

And the next morning two little teacups would make their home on his table; one, an old, broken reminder of his twice-lost love. The second, a reminder of a warrior. A red lion in the woods.


End file.
